Christmas: In Review

Christmas didn't look like I thought it was going to look like. But, you know, the funny thing about Christmas is somehow Christmas always ends up pretty good. God is good that way.

Our tradition has been to celebrate Christmas Eve with Tim's family....get up early Christmas day and drive to North Idaho to be with my family. It has actually worked out pretty slick over the years. This year things were a little too slick to make all that happen.

On Christmas Eve, it took us 2 1/2 hours to make a normal 1 hr 15 minute trip. The first half of the trip was probably one of the most exciting, yet completely nerve-wracking experiences of my life. The unusual snow storm we had this year made travel in our area a nightmare. Thankfully, we stayed on the roads and made it to our destination. For the amount of time we were with family, I would much rather have stayed home! I hope they know that we love them, because family is the only ones that makes an experience like that worthwhile. Here are a few pictures from our Christmas Eve event:

I got to hold David Howard!! Isn't he just the cutest? I have a scowly look on my face because I was wanting Tim to catch a picture of him "eating" the ball we gave him for Christmas...I wasn't sure that he had gotten one. I guess he did. It was fun watching him munch on it.


Here are all the Brandt Cousins. It was hard to get them all to look at the camera and smile all at the same time. It didn't help that they were all tired and sugared up....but they were cute anyway.

And here is my family on Christmas Eve....after 2 1/2 hours of awful snow driving....3 hours of Christmas Fun...and anticipating a long, messy drive home. Going home was better than getting there....but still quite the experience. Portland really doesn't do snow very well at all.

Then comes Christmas. Due to the awful road conditions, we opted to stay at home Christmas Day in hopes that things would improve given time. It was disappointing.....but when I get to hug and kiss on my three, very special Christmas gifts.....it's not so bad.

The next three pictures are just to highlight some of the fun things of the morning:




We had a good day together. The kids ended the day taking a bath together. They had gotten bath kits the night before and had a lot of fun. I had put bath tint tablets in their stockings...so they added those too. It wasn't until this morning, that I noticed that they had used the WHOLE container!! No wonder the water was black....and left a scum line to end all scum lines.
One of Caden's gifts was Uno Attack. (Have I ever mentioned before how much that boy loves games?) The day after Christmas, I think that Tim, Daria, and Caden played Uno Attack for 6 hours straight. From 11:00 in the morning, until 5:00 at night. That about sums up The Day After Christmas. It doesn't need a post of its own!

Though we have managed to have a good time on Plan B for Christmas, we still miss being in North Idaho with family. Things just don't seem the same. Both Daria and I have shed our share of tears....but we are eagerly anticipating a possible Late Christmas some time in January. Caden thought maybe it would be fun to save his Idaho Christmas presents for his birthday so that he would have twice as many presents on his birthday. When I reminded him that he had 6 months until his birthday, he decided that wasn't as good of an idea as he first thought!

With all the snow we had these last couple of weeks, tomorrow looks good for having Church. Church was canceled last week due to the snow....Christmas Eve was "canceled," even though they did an abbreviated service for whomever could get there. Not sure how many actually made it there. When they did the kids' Christmas program a couple of weeks ago, not many were there because of snow....so....they are presenting it again tomorrow. The Melody Chime choir that I am a part of will be doing our Christmas songs on January 4th.

Looks like we are having Make-Up Christmases everywhere. I'm praying that the Weather will behave and all our Make-Ups can really be made up. I'm putting in my requests to the Great Planner....NOW!!